Ep. 9 - A Match for the Government

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Chapter nine, a match for thegovernment. I wonder how long it will
take, mused Bill Quinn as hetossed aside a copy of his favorite fictional
monthly to remove the ethical restrictions whichthe war placed upon novels and short stories.

(00:20):
Did you ever notice the changing stylein villains? For example, a
decade or so ago, it wasall the rage to have a Japanese do
the dirty work. For then wewere taking the Yellow peril rather seriously,
and it was reflected in our readingmatter. The tall, well dressed Russian

(00:42):
with a sinister glitter in his blackeyes next stopped upon the scene, to
be followed by the villain, whosesworethy complexion gave a hint of his Latin
ancestry. For the past few years, of course, every real villain has
had to have it least a touchof Teutonic blood to account for the various

(01:03):
treacheries which he tackles. I don'trecall a single word or a short story
either that has had an English orFrench villain who has foiled in the last
few pages. I suppose you'd callit the untant cordiale of the novelists,
a sort of concerted attempt by thewriting plan to do their bid against the

(01:26):
hun and mighty good propaganda. Itwas too, But unfortunately the detective of
real life can't always tell by determininga man's nationality whether he's going to turn
out to be a krook or ahero. When you come right down to
it, every country has about thesame proportion of each and it's only by

(01:49):
the closest observation that one can arriveat a definite and fact supported conclusion.
Details trifles unknown noticed in themselves playa far larger part in the final denu
mat than any preconceived ideas or fancifultheories. There was the case of Ezra

(02:12):
Marks and the Dillingham Diamonds. Forexample, Ezra continued the former Secret Service
operative when he had eased his gameleg into a position where it no longer
gave him active trouble was all thatthe name implied. Born in Vermont of
a highly Puritanical family, he hadbeen named for his paternal grandfather, and

(02:37):
probably also for some character from theOld Testament. I'm not awfully strong on
that biblical stuff myself. It wasn'tlong after he grew up, however,
that life on the farm began toPaul. He found a copy of the
Life of Alan Pinkerton somewhere and readit through until he knew it from cover

(03:00):
to cover. It was only naturalin a boy of his age. He
determined to become a great detective anddrifted down to Boston with that object in
view. But once in the city, he found that detecting was a little
more difficult than he had imagined,and finally agreed to compromise by accepting a

(03:23):
very minor position in the police department. Luckily, his beat lay along the
waterfront, and he got tangled upin two or three smuggling cases, which
he managed to unravel in fine shape, and in this way attracted the attention
of the customs branch of the TreasuryDepartment, which is always on the lookout

(03:45):
for new timber. It's a hardlife, you know, and one which
doesn't constitute a good risk for aninsurance company. So there are always gaps
to be filled, and Ezra pluggedup one of them very nicely, as
might have been expected. The newEnglander was hardly ever addressed by his full

(04:08):
name. Ea Z was the titlethey coined for him, and ea Z
he was from that time on atleast to everyone in the service. The
people on the other side of thefence, however, the men and women
who look upon the United States governmentas a joke and its laws as hurdles

(04:29):
over which they can jump whenever theywish, found that this mark was far
from an easy one. He itwas who handled the Wang Foo opium case
in San Diego in nineteen eleven.He nailed the gun runners at El Paso
when half a dozen other men hadfallen down on the assignment, and there

(04:49):
were at least three Canadian cases whichbore the imprint of his latent genius on
the finished reports. His particular kindof genius was distinctly out of the ordinary
too. He wasn't flashy, andhe was far from a hard worker.
He just stuck around and watched everythingworth watching until he located the tip he

(05:15):
wanted. Then he went to it, and the case was finished. The
chap who stated that genius is thecapacity for infinite attention to details had Ezra
sized up to a t, andit was one of these details, probably
the most trifling one of all,that led to his most startling success.

(05:39):
Back in the spring of nineteen twelve, the European agents of the Treasury Department
reported to Washington that a collection ofuncut diamonds, most of them rather large,
had been sold to the German representativeof firm and Rotterdam from certain tips
which they picked up. However,the men abroad were of the opinion that

(06:03):
the stones were destined for the UnitedStates, and advised that all German boats
be carefully watched, because the DillinghamDiamonds, as the collection was known,
had been last heard of en routeto Hamburg, and it was to be
expected that they would clear from there. The cablegram didn't cause any wild excitement

(06:27):
in the Treasury Department. European agentshave a habit of trying to stir up
trouble in order to make it appearthat they are earning their money, and
then they claim that the people overhere are not always alert enough to follow
their tips. It's the old gameof passing the buck. You have to
expect it in any business. Butas events turned out, the men on

(06:53):
the other side were dead right.Almost before Washington had time a fish to
digest the cable and to mail outthe stereotyped warnings based upon it. A
report filtered in from Wheeling, WestVirginia that one of the newly made coal
millionaires in that section had invested insome uncut diamonds as large as the end

(07:17):
of your thumb. The report camein merely as a routine statement, but
it set the customs authorities to thinking. Uncut stones, you know, are
hard to locate, either when theyare being brought in or after they actually
arrive. Their color is dull andslate like, and there is little to

(07:40):
distinguish them from other and far lessvaluable pebbles. Of course, there might
not be the slightest connection in theworld between the Wheeling diamonds and those of
the Dillingham collection, But then,on the other hand, there might.
Hence it behooved the customs people toput on a little more speed, and

(08:01):
to watch the incoming steamers just ascarefully as they knew how Some weeks passed
and the department had sunk back intoa state of comfortable ease, broken only
occasionally by a minor case or two, when a wire arrived one morning stating
that two uncut diamonds had appeared inNew York under conditions which appeared distinctly suspicious.

(08:28):
The owner had offered them at aprice way under the market figure,
and then, rather than reply toone or two questions relative to the history
of the stones, had disappeared.There was no record of the theft of
any diamonds answering to the description ofthose seen in Maiden Lane, and the

(08:50):
police force inquired if Washington thought theycould have been smuggled. Of course they
could snorted, the Chief, butthere's nothing to prove it. Unless we
get our hands upon them and adetailed description of the Dillingham stones, it's
impossible to tell. So he cabledabroad for an accurate list of the diamonds,

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which had been sold a couple ofmonths earlier, with special instructions to
include any identifying marks, as itwas essential to spot the stones before a
case could be built up in court. The following Tuesday, a long dispatch
from Rotterdam reached the department, stating, among other things, that one of

(09:35):
the Dillingham diamonds could be distinguished bya heart shaped flaw located just below the
surface. That same afternoon came anotherwire from New York to the effect that
two rough stones answering to the descriptionof the ones alluded to in a previous
message, had turned up in thejewelry district, after passing through a dozen

(10:00):
underground channels. Has one of thediamonds a heart shaped flaw in it?
The chief inquired by wire it hascame back. The response, how did
you know it? I didn't,muttered the head of the custom service,
but I took a chance. Theodds were twenty to one against me.

(10:24):
But I've seen these long shots winbefore. Now ringing for Mahoney, his
assistant, we'll see what can bedone to keep the rest of that collection
from drifting in if it hasn't alreadyarrived. Where's Marx located now, the
chief inquired, when Mahoney entered somewherein the vicinity of Buffalo. I believe

(10:50):
he's working on that cheesebro case,the one in connection with by no cut
in the chief, But that's pinmoney compared with this matter of the Dillingham
diamonds. Thousands of dollars are atstake here against hundreds there. Besides,
if this thing ever leaks out tothe papers, we'll never hear the last

(11:13):
of it. The New York Officeisn't in any too strong as it is
wire marks to drop the trail ofthose silk hounds and beat it to New
York as fast as he can.He'll find real work awaiting him there,
something that ought to prove a testof the reputation he's built up on the

(11:35):
other three boarders. Hurry it up. Ea Zy found the message awaiting him
when he returned to his hotel thatnight, and without the slightest symptom of
a grouch, grabbed the next trainfor New York. As he told me
later, he didn't mind in theleast dropping the silk matter, because he

(11:58):
had put in the better part ofa month on it and didn't seem any
closer than when he started. Ittook Ezra less than five minutes to get
all the dope the New York Officehad on the case, and it took
him nearly six months to solve it. The two diamonds in Wheeling and the
two that turned up here are theonly ones we know about, said the

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man in charge of the New Yorkoffice. The original Dillingham collection contained twenty
one rough stones, but whether theother seventeen have already been brought in,
or whether the people who are handlingthem have shipped them elsewhere, is wholly
problematical. The Chief learned about theheart shaped flaw from our man at Rotterdam,

(12:46):
so that identifies one of the stones. But at the same time it
doesn't help us in the least,for we can't handle the case from this
end. Same rules is on thecoast, inquired Marx. Precisely, you've
got to tackle the other end ofthe game. No rummaging around here trying

(13:09):
to pick up the trail that endswith the stone in Maiden Lane. As
you know, this bunch is prettywell organized. Wheels within wheels, and
fences on fences. You get somethingon one of them, and the rest
of the crowd will perjure themselves blackin the face to get him off,

(13:31):
with the result that your case willbe laughed out of court, and the
man you're really after, the chapwho's running the stones under your nose,
is a thousand miles away with agrin on his face. You've got to
land him first and the others laterif the chief wants them. The chances
are though, that he'll be wellsatisfied to have the goods and the crook

(13:56):
that's doing the main part of thework well drawled. Marx. I trust
he gets his satisfaction. Got anyideas on the matter. Nary an idea.
The stones were sold abroad, andpresumably they were headed for Hamburg,
which would appear to point to aGerman boat. Four of them, supposedly

(14:20):
one of them certainly turned up herewithout passing through the office or paying the
customary duty. Now go to it. When Marx got back to his hotel
and started to think the problem over, he had to admit that there wasn't
very much to go to. Itwas the thinnest case he had ever tackled,

(14:45):
a perfect circle of a problem withoutthe slightest sign of a beginning,
save the one which was barred.Anxious as he was to make good,
he had to concede that the department'spolicy of working from the other end of
the case was the right course tofollow. He had heard of too many

(15:05):
arrests that fell flat, too manyweary weeks of work that went for nothing
because the evidence was insufficient. Notto realize the justice of the regulations that
appeared to hamper him. No,he thought, as he half dreamed over
a pipeload of tobacco, the caseseems to be impregnable, but there must

(15:28):
be some way to jimmy into it. If you try long enough. His
first move was the fairly obvious oneof searching the newspaper files to discover just
what ships had docked during the tendays previous to the appearance of the stones
and wheeling. But this led nowhere, because that week had been a very

(15:50):
busy one in maritime circles. TheCeltic, the Mauretania, the Kaiser Wilhelm
de Grass, the compossessed in Sicily, the deutsch Land, and a host
of other smaller vessels had landed withinthat time. Just as a check upon

(16:11):
his observations, he examined the recordsfor the week preceding the first appearance of
the diamonds in New York. Hereagain he ran into a snag, but
one which enabled him to eliminate atleast half of the vessels he had considered
before. However, there still remaineda sufficient number to make it impossible to

(16:33):
watch all of them, or evento fix upon two or three which appeared
more suspicious than the others. Theinformation from abroad pointed to the fact that
a German boat was carrying the diamonds, but Marks figured there was nothing in
the world to prevent the stones frombeing taken into England or France or Italy

(16:56):
and reshipped from there. They hadturned up in the United States, so
why couldn't they have been slipped throughthe customs of other countries just as easily.
The one point about the whole matterthat appeared significant to him was that
two stones had been reported in eachcase, a pair in Wheeling and another

(17:18):
pair in New York. This evidencewould be translated either to mean that the
smugglers preferred to offer the diamonds insmall lots so as not to center suspicion
too sharply in their movements, orthat the space which they used to conceal
the stones was extremely limited. Marksinclined to the latter theory, because two

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stones rather than one, had beenoffered in each instance. If the whole
lot had been run in, heargued, the men responsible would market them
singly rather than in pairs. Thiswould not detract in the slightest from the
value of the stones, as itisn't easy to match rough diamonds and thus

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increase their market value. Having settledthis matter to his own satisfaction, and
being convinced that as not more thantwo stones were being run in at one
time, it would take at leasteight more trips to import the entire shipment.
Easy settled down to a part ofthe government detective's work which is the

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hardest and the most necessary in hislife, that which can best be characterized
by the phrase watchful waiting. Forweeks at a time, he haunted the
docks and wharves along the New YorkWaterfront. His tall, angular figure became
a familiar sight at every landing place, and his eyes roamed restlessly over the

(18:53):
crowds that came down the gangplank.In a number of instances he personally directed
the searching of bags and baggage whichappeared to be suspicious. Save for locating
a few bolts of valuable lace andan oil painting concealed in the handle of
a walking stick which was patently hollow, he failed to turn up a thing.

(19:18):
The only ray of hope that hecould glimpse was the fact that since
he had been assigned to the case, four more stones had been reported again
in pairs. This proved that theformer reasoning had been correct, and also
that the smugglers evidently intended to bringin all of the twenty one stones two

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at a time. But when hecame to catalog the hiding places which might
be used to conceal two articles ofthe size of the stones already spotted.
He was stumped. The list includeda walking stick, the heels of a
pair of women shoes, two dummypieces of candy concealed in a box of

(20:03):
real confections, a box of talcum, a bag of marbles, the handle
of an umbrella, or any oneof a number of other trinkets which travelers
carry as a matter of course,or bring home as curios or gifts.
Finally, after two solid months ofunproductive work, he boarded the midnight train

(20:26):
for Washington and strolled into the Chief'soffice the following morning to lay his cards
on the table. Frankly, headmitted, I haven't accomplished a thing.
I'm as far from breaking into thecircle as I was at the beginning,
and so far as I can see, there isn't any hope of doing it

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for some time to come, well, inquired the chief, Do you want
to be relieved of the case ordo you want me to drop the matter
entirely to confess that the custom servicehas been licked by a single clever smuggler.
Not at all, And Marks's toneindicated that such a thought had never

(21:10):
entered his head. I want theservice to stick with the case, and
I want to continue to handle it. But I do want a definite assurance
of time. How much time thatI can't say. The only lead I've
located, and that isn't sufficient tobe dignified by the term clue will take

(21:33):
weeks and probably months to run toearth. I don't see another earthly trail
to follow, but I would liketo have time to see whether this one
leads anywhere. All right, agreedthe chief fully realizing what easy was up
against, and not being hurried byany pressure from the outside, for the

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case had been carefully kept out ofthe newspapers. This is September. Suppose
we say the first of the year. How does that suit you fair enough?
If that's the best you can do, I'm afraid it is, was
the comment from across the desk,Because that's all the case is worth to

(22:17):
us. Your time is valuable,and we can't afford to spend a year
on any case unless it's something asbig as the sugar frauds. Stick with
it until New Years, and ifnothing new develops before then, we'll have
to admit we're elict and turn youloose on something else. Thanks, Chief,

(22:38):
said Marx, getting up from hischair. You can depend on my
doing everything possible in the next threemonths to locate the leak, and I
surely appreciate your kindness in not deliveringan ultimatum that you want the smuggler or
my job. But then I guessyou know that I couldn't work any harder

(22:59):
than I'm going to anyhow, possibly, agreed the head of the service.
And then again, it may bebecause I have confidence that you'll turn the
trick within the year. Want anyhelp from this end? No thanks.
This looks like a one man game, and it ought not to take more

(23:21):
than one man to finish it.A whole bunch of people always clutter up
the place, and you get tangledin their pet theories and personal ideas.
What I would like, though,is to be kept in close touch with
any further developments concerning stones that appearlater on, where they are located,

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their exact weight and diameter, andany other facts that might indicate a possible
hiding place. You'll get that,all right, promised the Chief, and
I trust that you'll develop a redhot trail of your own before January first.
With that, Mark shook hands andstarted back to New York, fairly

(24:03):
well pleased with the results of histrip, but totally disgusted with the lack
of progress which he had made sinceleaving Buffalo. Early in October, a
message from Washington informed him that acouple of uncut diamonds had turned up in
Cincinnati Stones, which answered to thedescription of a pair of the Dillingham collection.

(24:26):
Around the tenth of November, anotherpair was heard from in Boston,
and anyone who was familiar with Marksand his methods would have noted a tightening
of the muscles around his mouth anda narrowing of his eyes, which always
indicated that he was nearing the solutionof a difficulty. After receiving the November

(24:47):
message, he stopped haunting the wharvesand commenced to frequent the steamship offices of
the Hamburg, American, North German, Lloyd and Lanarch lines. The latter,
as you probably know, is operatedby Welsh and British Capital and runs
a few small boats carrying passengers whowould ordinarily travel second class, together with

(25:11):
a considerable amount of freight. Whenthe first day of December donned Mars,
drew a deep red circle around thename of the month on his calendar,
and emitted a prayerful oath to theeffect that he'd be good and eternally damned
if that month didn't contain an unexpectedChristmas present for a certain person. He

(25:33):
made no pretense of knowing who theperson was, but he did feel that
he was considerably closer to his preythan he had been five months before.
Fate, as someone has already remarked, only deals a man a certain number
of poor hands before his luck changes. Sometimes it gets worse, but on

(25:56):
the average it improves. In EzraMarks's case, fate took the form of
a storm at sea, one ofthose winter hurricanes that sweep across the Atlantic
and play havoc with shipping. Ezraelwas patiently waiting for one of three boats,
which one he didn't know, butby the process of elimination he had

(26:19):
figured to a mathematical certainty that oneof them ought to carry two uncut diamonds,
which were destined never to visit thecustom's office. Little by little,
through the months that had passed,he had weeded out the ships which failed
to make port at the time thediamonds arrived, calculating the time by the

(26:41):
dates in which the stones appeared elsewhere, and there were only three ships left.
One of them was a North Germanloiter, the second belonged to the
Hamburg American fleet, and the thirdpossessed an unpronounceable Welsh name and flew the
pennant of the Lanarch line. Asit happened, the two German ships ran

(27:03):
into the teeth of the gale andwere delayed three days on their trip,
while the Welch boat missed the stormentirely and docked on time. Two days
later came a message from Washington tothe effect that two diamonds uncut had been
offered for sale in Philadelphia. Haveto have one more month, replied Marx,

(27:26):
imperative can practically guarantee success by fifteenthof January, for that was the
date in which the Welsh ship wasdue to return. Extension granted, came
the word from Washington, rely onyou to make good. Can't follow the
case any longer than a month underany circumstances. Marx grinned when he got

(27:51):
that message. The trap was set, and unless something unforeseen occurred, Easy
felt that the man and the methodwould both be in the open before long.
When the Welsh ship was reported offquarantine in January, Marx bundled himself
into a big fur coat and wentdown the bay in one of the government

(28:14):
boats, leaving instructions that the momentthe ship docked, she was to be
searched from stem to stern. Don'toverlook as much as a pill box or
a rat hole, he warned hisassistance, and more than a score of
men saw to it that his instructionswere carried out to the letter. Beyond

(28:34):
exhibiting his credentials, Marx made noeffort to explain why the ship was under
suspicion. He watched the deck closelyto prevent the crew from throwing packages overboard,
and as soon as they reached doche requested all officers to join him
in one of the big rooms belongingto the custom service. There he explained

(28:57):
his reasons for believing that someone onboard was guilty of defrauding the government out
of duty on a number of uncutdiamonds. What's more, he concluded at
the end of an address which waspurposely lengthy in order to give his men
time to search the ship, Iam willing to stake my position against the

(29:18):
fact that two more diamonds on boardthe ship at this moment. Luckily no
one took him up, for hewas wrong. The captain, pompous and
self assertive, preferred to rise andrant against the infernal injustice of this high
handed method. Marx settled back tolisten in silence, and his fingers strayed

(29:42):
to the side pocket of his coat, where his pet pipe reposed. His
mind strayed to the thought of howhis men were getting along on the ship,
and he absentmindedly packed the pipe andstruck a match to light it.
It was then that his i fellupon the man seated beside him, Halley,

(30:03):
the British first mate of the steamer. He had seen him sitting there
before, but had paid little attentionto him. Now he became aware of
the fact that the mate was smokinga huge, deep bold Meerschaum pipe.
At least it had been in hismouth ever since he entered, ready to
be smoked, but unlighted. Almostwithout thinking about it, Marks leaned forward

(30:30):
and presented the lighted match, holdingit above the mate's pipe. Light He
inquired in a matter of fact toneto his amazement. The other started back
as if he had been struck,and then, recovering himself, muttered,
no thanks, I'm not smoking.Not smoking was the thought that flashed through

(30:53):
Marks's head. Then why But thesolution of the matter flashed upon him almost
instantly, before the mate had timeto move, Marx's hand snapped forward and
seized the pipe. With the samemovement, he turned it upside down and
wrapped the bowl upon the table.Out fell a fair amount of tobacco,

(31:18):
followed by two slate colored pebbles,which rolled across the table under the very
eyes of the captain. I guessthat's all the evidence we need, Marx
declared, with a laugh of relief. You needn't worry about informing your consul
and entering a protest, Captain Williams, I'll take charge of your mate and

(31:41):
these stones, and you can clearwhen you wish. End of Chapter nine.